Monday, April 28, 2003

Thank you for the birthday greetings - being 30 has been good for me so far :-) More about my birthday weekend in a later post. I had a whole day off, which was absolute heaven! For now, here's a post I half-prepared over a week ago :-)

"Project House" is ticking along at a fair old rate at the moment, involving a fair amount of time and manual labour. The scaffolding is still up, and we've done about half the work. The budget doesn't stretch to paying people to do jobs we're capable of doing ourselves, leaving us frantically trying to get everything painted while we can get to it easily. If it had just been a case of painting we'd have finished by now, instead we lost days and blisters to scraping paint off from crumbling masonry. The worst dents are healing now, and a week on I actually have skin on my thumb again.

As if that wasn't enough pressure, the new carpet is due to be fitted in the front room on Saturday. Which means that time is running out
to do those little jobs like painting the skirting boards and doors. Having put in about 20 man hours between us in the last 48 (on top of a full day in the office) the end is in sight. If we can keep going we should be finished on Wednesday, giving the paint a good couple of days to dry properly.

For "relaxation" in between all of this, I've been rebuilding my PC (hence the total silence). Suffice to say things have not being going to plan - just when I had the blasted thing working it crashed and I'm back to way behind square one. And with the schedule the way it is, I'm PC-less until at least Thursday, but more likely the weekend. The only reason I'm posting this now is that Owen has gone for a well-deserved soak in the bath while I use his.

Time for bed now - a lot to do tomorrow :-)

posted at 10:40 PM

Friday, April 18, 2003

Oops - over a week since I last posted again! I've been working altogether too hard as usual - both in the office and on the house.

The front of the house is currently covered in scaffolding. All of the old crumbly plaster has been removed and replaced so the walls are nice and smooth again. Due to the limited nature of the funds, we're currently doing the painting ourselves. I say we, but bloing has done most of the hard work so far due to my irrational fear of heights. Pics should follow later, as soon as I get round to it (no pointing out that we've heard that one before if you don't mind :-).

Along the way, we have caught up with several friends over some nice meals. I've even read my first comic (I refer you to mr squodge for the low down on why I would do such a thing). I used to read stuff like The Beano, but I'd never read any superhero Marvel type comics before.

Without wishing to further reinforce the stereotype that the Brits are obsessed with the weather, what on earth is going on round here? Last week we had snow (in London too!) and it's been around 24C (70ish F) for the last couple of days. It's supposed to be around 10C (50ish F) at this time of year, but it's hotter than parts of the med. Most odd. To celebrate a sunny day and a 4 day weekend people around the country will be flocking to the supermarket to stock up on beer and burgers before rushing home to fire up the barbie. We'll be heading off to catch up with some old pals we haven't seen in ages over a sausage or two.

The sun is shining, the chores are piling up, the house won't paint itself and the weather man says today is our last nice day this weekend. Better get on with it sigh

posted at 8:01 AM

Thursday, April 10, 2003

Things you always wanted to do with a digital camera but were afraid it would make you look silly: Parking Spots - people holding up toy cars and photographing them in the street so they look like they're parked :-)

In an update to a prickly story that won't go away - apparently it's hard to cull hedgehogs while they're still hibernating as you can't find them :-)

In the US, blue tomato ketchup is all the rage.

UK viewers will get the chance to see Charlotte Church, William Hague and Martin Clunes presenting various editions of HIGNFY.

And in an inspired bit of casting, Dawn French has been signed up to play the Fat Lady in the next Harry Potter film. Being a bit of a HP nut (I was one of the 50,000 who ordered book 5 from Amazon the day the release date was announced), I have totally agreed with most of the adult casting decisions, from Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid through to Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lovehart.

To demonstrate that not all of the latest security measures make sense, take a look at the Stupid Security Awards. You have to wonder where some of the winners were when common sense was handed out.

And finally, I leave you with a question - if a knife thrower nicks his assistant, does that qualify as a hit or a miss?

posted at 8:42 PM

Thursday, April 03, 2003

I've been a bit busy again of late. The main reason for my absence is Majora's Mask. I know it's an old game now, but I was halfway through playing it when we moved (about 18 months ago now) and the N64 only came back out of it's box just before Xmas. In eager anticipation of The Wind Walker I thought it was about time I finished the previous incarnation of Zelda. This series is the main reason why I chose a GameCube over the other consoles. I highly recommend them to anyone who enjoys gaming and doesn't mind losing a month to solid gaming :-)

Via Jon and bingobowden, I have now come across blogshares, which I will probably mention again later when I've played with it some more. I have no idea how come I'm listed on a site like this that I've never heard of, but such is the joy of the web :-) It's seems a bit screwed though as it lists me as only linking to bloing which is patently not true as my blogroll will testify. Unless it's ignoring links held through blogrolling as there is a permanent link to oin at the bottom of this page!

posted at 11:34 AM

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